justRead – Native iOS EPUB Reader (Built for Power Readers)

[petrjahoda]

Hi everyone,

I'm building justRead, a native iOS reading app for iPhone, and I wanted to share it with this community since you're exactly who I'm building it for.

The problem I wanted to solve: Most reading apps lock you in. You import your EPUBs, they copy them into a database, and suddenly your books are trapped inside that app's ecosystem. If you switch apps, your library stays behind.

justRead does the opposite.

How It Works: Instead of importing and copying, justRead reads directly from a folder you control—whether that's local storage or cloud (iCloud Drive, Dropbox, Google Drive). Your books stay your books. You own them.

If you use Calibre on your Mac/PC to manage your library, all your metadata flows in automatically (author, series, tags, covers). If you just organize books in folders, that works too, the app reads all the subfolders inside the main one.

That means:

• Your books stay in your control – not locked in the app
• One source of truth – books live in your folder, not duplicated across apps
• Cloud sync is optional – put your folder in iCloud, and your library syncs everywhere
• Edit anywhere – update metadata in Calibre, and justRead picks it up instantly
• Your fonts – not limited to developer-selected options; use fonts you own
• Native speed – built with SwiftUI for instant responsiveness on iPhone
• Thoughtful details – image inversion for dark mode, orientation control, accessibility built-in

The app is currently in active development, with 85% done, with two phases:
TestFlight: January 2026 (this month)
Public Release: March 2026

I'm sharing this early because I want feedback from actual readers.
What matters most to you in a reading app?
What's missing from the options you've tried?

More details on the design philosophy: https://justread.app/en/blog_post_de...tread_part_two

If you're interested in TestFlight early access: https://justread.app/en/

Thanks for reading, and I'd love your thoughts.

—Peter

[JSWolf]

Does it fully support the CSS? Does it allow custom fonts? Does it fully support ePub3?

[petrjahoda]

Yes, it allows any font you want, more in that blogpost.
Yes, it fully support epub3.
About that CSS...what do you mean by this?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by petrjahoda

Yes, it allows any font you want, more in that blogpost.
Yes, it fully support epub3.
About that CSS...what do you mean by this?

A lot of ePub reading apps on iOS and Android don't properly support the CSS well enough and they ignore a lot of it and give you setting to set it instead.

That reminds me. If you give us settings to override parts of the CSS, can you also have these settings have an off setting so the CSS value(s) can be used?

But given it supports ePub3 sully, I wouls think the CSS is also fully supported.

One other thing. Please don't stick us with a minimum margin. Let us have a margin of 0 and let us adjust that as we want. iBooks has a huge default margin that that's way too big for an iPhone.

[petrjahoda]

Well, this sentence "If you give us settings to override parts of the CSS, can you also have these settings have an off setting so the CSS value(s) can be used?" made it even more confused for me.

There is no option to add your own CSS file, if you meant this.
But you can change
- foreground color
- background color
- font
- reading direction
- font size
- margins
- scroll/not scroll
- invert images yes/no
- normalize text w/ font weight
- text alignment
- line height
- word spacing
- letter spacing
- paragraph spacing
- paragraph indent
- hyphens yes/no

[petrjahoda]

Hi, thank you for adding additional information.
That "Apple Books" margin was one that constantly made me mad.

I personally read in landscape (with scroll off) and want to have as much space possible for reading.
You can adjust margins even behind the iphone notch if you like to.

[DJUNGELSKOG]

Originally Posted by petrjahoda

That "Apple Books" margin was one that constantly made me mad.

Oh yes, I hate them too!

I'm not your target audience but I wish you luck with your project, more competition in this space is good for everyone!

[petrjahoda]

Hi, thank you very much for the support and just FYI, android version is coming after ios release.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by petrjahoda

Well, this sentence "If you give us settings to override parts of the CSS, can you also have these settings have an off setting so the CSS value(s) can be used?" made it even more confused for me.

There is no option to add your own CSS file, if you meant this.
But you can change
- foreground color
- background color
- font
- reading direction
- font size
- margins
- scroll/not scroll
- invert images yes/no
- normalize text w/ font weight
- text alignment
- line height
- word spacing
- letter spacing
- paragraph spacing
- paragraph indent
- hyphens yes/no

What I mean is when an eBook has CSS to do something and the program has options to override, I don't want the override to always override. I want every override to be able to be turned off. And please don't have normalize text. Just have a font weight option.

Too many programs have CSS overrides and you are stuck with them even when you don't want them. You sometimes get CSS only with no overrides or all the overrides with no way to turn any of them off. This makes the program a nightmare to use I'd call such a program garbage.

[petrjahoda]

Hi, thank you very much for this, but it is no more clear to me :-).
That font weight is on the list thank you.
In the meantime I looked into that CSS and looks like there can be a way to have a user CSS prepared upfront, that will "replace" the CSS in the file itself.
But I don't know if the reader are also half/programmers, so they can create their own css from scratch.
And when I go back to justRead app, everything can be turned off and have it like it is directly in the epub css.
Maybe this is what you wanted? Turn some feature on and some on?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by petrjahoda

Hi, thank you very much for this, but it is no more clear to me :-).
That font weight is on the list thank you.
In the meantime I looked into that CSS and looks like there can be a way to have a user CSS prepared upfront, that will "replace" the CSS in the file itself.
But I don't know if the reader are also half/programmers, so they can create their own css from scratch.
And when I go back to justRead app, everything can be turned off and have it like it is directly in the epub css.
Maybe this is what you wanted? Turn some feature on and some on?

You have normalize text with font weight. Normalize text needs to go and just have font weight.

That's all wrong. Do not replace the CSS of the book with some CSS that won't work.

Any option that overrides anything in the CSS should have the option to be turned off. That way it goes the user the option to use any override or not.

[petrjahoda]

Hi, sorry, by the text "That font weight is on the list thank you." I meant that is on the to-do list. Badly written.

And about that CSS. OK, understand now: in the app there are about 14 parameters, that can override CSS, that is inside epub.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by petrjahoda

Hi, sorry, by the text "That font weight is on the list thank you." I meant that is on the to-do list. Badly written.

And about that CSS. OK, understand now: in the app there are about 14 parameters, that can override CSS, that is inside epub.

All of these 14 parameters need to be able to be turned off separately.

[petrjahoda]

Yes, it is visible in some screenshots on the web, you can have 7 turned on and the rest off.

[pdurrant]

It sounds interesting. I've signed up on your web site.

I have calibre sync installed on my iPhone. I have all my epub books downloaded using it. If this reader could read directly from the downloaded epubs of calibre sync, that would be great.